


Afternoon Teas and Secret Identities

by Galaxylatte



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, And Baekhyun sparkles I guess, Coffee Shops, Jongdae is something like Tim Drake Robin meets Static Shock, M/M, Secret Identity, Superheroes, Vigilantes in Love, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 14:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galaxylatte/pseuds/Galaxylatte
Summary: Apparently, the most dilemmatic part in the revelation of his secret identity is finding the easiest route to swing into the rooftop of their favorite coffee shop and find a place to change.Jongdae doesn't know whether he should feel relieved or disappointed by this fact.





	Afternoon Teas and Secret Identities

Later on, Jongdae told Baekhyun that it was the bus transfer that gave him away – dropped during one of The Armor’s routine building-vandalism and hostage-taking.

The Armor, whose naming choice they are still trying to figure out since he never seems to wear any kind of Armor, is something of a stalwart constant in the jumble of Exodus City’s mid-tier rogue’s gallery. Not serious enough to warrant the big guns, but still dangerous enough to get both Jongdae’s Vespers persona and Lux on the scene.

The whole thing had ended, as it often does, in a rooftop, with him nursing a bruised arm in a safe distance whilst Exodus City’s police corps took care of such trivial things as handcuffs and witnesses and cleanup (They have to be useful for _something_ , at the very least). And there, in the gravel just moments ago vacated by a blur of white fabric and sparkling lights, lies a bus transfer.

The fine, bright-white particles of fiber stuck to it was definitely his – a curious and one-of-a-kind mixture of kevlar and fleece that he swears up and down is the coziest thing ever against Exodus City’s seemingly neverending state of autumn. Incidentally, the time stamp was the exact time that one Byun Baekhyun had rushed off into a bus earlier that day, mumbling some obscure thing about _deadlines!_ and _gotta go! -_ Which, at that time he didn’t very much write off as odd, as he himself was also mustering up some slapdash excuse why he has to be _somewhere else_ , right _now_.

Then there was the _coup de grace_ \- Terribly crumpled edge (Jongdae _knew_ someone whose fingers always has trouble staying still), was a strand of lavender-pink hair. And he knew that pink – Earlier on as Baekhyun tossed his newly-dyed locks in front of him , crowing in nerdy pride because courtesy of an inside friend, it’s a very particular pink from a collaboration line with an upcoming fantasy movie that won’t be in stores for weeks yet.

And right there he just knew, knew that Lux – the vigilante that was with him moments ago was no other than the boy that he frequently (and increasingly) meets in his favorite bookstore café, with the multicolored eyeliners and sweet grin and dorky badges on his oversized coat (Which, by the way, is always blindingly _white_. Patterns, patterns)

Jongdae has always been good with those kinds of patterns. It was the same kind of good that enables him to track down mafia connections and money laundering accounts, that always puts him in the position to intercept shipments and secret rendezvous – And ultimately what earned him the notoriety on the back alleys and rooftops of Exodus City. His alter ego Vespers might not be the most feared out of the pantheon of masks in the city, but his grey figure could be counted upon to always have the information and means to take down things infinitely bigger than himself.

It was, however, nothing sort of a serendipitous miracle that two of the city’s masked vigilantes happen to frequent the same little bookstore café on the corner of Fifth street - Allowing him to actually know the significance of the patterns at all.

After the bus pass, everything had clicked like parts of some secret Rube Goldberg machinery he didn’t know was there all along. The odd scrapes and bruises (No one can be _that_ clumsy, adorable as it was), the scarily familiar way Baekhyun handles knives (He now feels justified all along of having been creeped out by someone _peeling an apple_ ), the way they always simultaneously excused themselves whenever some crazy hijinks happened downtown. In retrospect, he probably would have picked up the patterns much earlier if he wasn’t so busy covering up for his own bizarre life-schedule.

 

\---

 

“So yeah, bus transfers”

Baekhyun laughed, head thrown back and eyes crinkling and it was nothing like the derisive, sharp laughter he heard so many times before, mingling with the wind and police sirens - And for a moment he was thrown by the strange realization that he got to hear both this laugh and the other – And that it felt _important_ , somehow.

“Well no shit _,_ Sherlock. I’m two short planks compared to _that_ ” Despite his self-depreciating grin, there was a lot of things where he fell short of the boy before him, seemingly harmless as he was, wrapped in oversized cashmere and cradling a mug on his sweater paws. The same hands, he knew, that are deadly with knives and sparks alike, hands with considerably less hesitation than his when it comes to seeking out its targets.

Unlike his grey-clad Vespers persona, Lux sports a flashy ensemble of pure white and sparkling silver - And many had mistaken his size and ridiculously bright white cape as something pure, helpless. That is until he pulls out the knives and dazzling sparks of light that sent countless criminals out where the sun don’t shine. Amongst the loosely knit circle of masks in the city’s rooftops, Lux has always had a reputation for going a tad too far, too much, the whites of his cape often speckled with red.

Hells, for the first few times they crossed paths, Jongdae had been carefully on edge, ready to shoot a line and vault down the edge of a random rooftop at the first inkling of murderous instability. But the diminutive figure of Lux proved to be good company, cracking jokes and random conversations that made their increasingly adjoined night patrols ridiculously enjoyable, and having no qualms of actually getting up close and personal with the thugs and criminals they met when Jongdae’s electricity won’t reach.

Quietly, tentatively, Jongdae told himself that they make a good team.

“But how did you…?” He trails off, scrutinizing the boy before him. He had, after all, approached him first with the revelation.

It had been on the aftermath of a routine takedown in the warehouse district – It was raining, and they were breathless and bruised, and he had said “The usual place, then? I could definitely use some tea”, as casually as if he had…well, asked him out for tea. He had done a double take and just stared at the white-clad vigilante beside him for a very, very long time before his lips – the only part of his face visible under his silver domino mask – twisted into a familiar, dorky grin.

Jongdae was torn between feeling disappointed and relieved that the most dilemmatic part of his ‘big reveal’ was which route was easiest for them to swing to the coffee shop and find a place to change into plainclothes.

“I saw your sketches“

“Oh?” He knits his brow in confusion “You mean these?” He picked up the leather-bound sketchbook he constantly carries around from the table. Baekhyun had always loved flipping through the pages, making up zany elaborate stories out of his random sketches. Indeed, it was actually the sketchbook that had gotten them to know each other in the first place. On the back of his head was a mounting sense of panic that he had accidentally jotted down some incriminating clues amongst the lines of his sketches - Maybe scrawled between his renditions of Exodus City’s skyscapes and smog was something like ‘ _don’t forget to intercept heroin shipping on dock tonight. PS : feed the goddamned cat’_. He stole a slightly mortified glance at his sketchbook before turning his attention back to Baekhyun.

“It’s really fucked up” He grins, referring to the twisted shapes and dark chiaroscuros of his buildings and shadows - And then his expression sobered, picking up the leather-bound book from the table, flipping through it with a wistful twist on his lips.

“But it’s also really…hopeful, you know. Like, I thought, this is someone who has seen the worst that this city has to offer, and still think that it’s…that it’s worth saving. That it deserves to be saved” Baekhyun’s voice has grown hushed and quiet as he went on, and Jongdae found himself at a loss for words himself. And then, he caught his eyes and his smile returns in full bloom.

“No one is as stupidly optimistic as you are in this whole goddamn city. Not someone who’s seen the fucked up things we did. So I know it’s gotta be you”

He smiles then, a little, and sips his own tea, before the moment passes and they settle back comfortably into talks of tv series and crackpot psychology and what eventually turned into a plan for a movie date and Jongdae feels relieved. Content, almost.

Maybe one of these days, he will show the sketches that he hides away – The ones with splashes of pure white amidst twisted black shapes that flits gracefully about the landscape. And perhaps then Jongdae will tell Baekhyun that for him, his light was a beacon of hope in an otherwise gray, gray world.


End file.
